Swamigp’s Weblog

The Tennessee Volunteers were involved in the biggest game in Tennessee sports history, and won, taking over their first ever #1 ranking in school history. But that didn’t last long. Dick Vitale, an ESPN analyst, warned Tennessee even before the showdown with Memphis that they should be more worried about the Vanderbilt game on Tuesday. He was right, Vanderbilt took the #1 out of Tennessee by beating them 72-69 behind Shan Foster’s 32 points. They came out of the gates determined to make the upset a reality by going up 23-9 with 10:47 left in the first half. Tennessee’s sluggish start, created by the hangover of the Memphis game, was to Vanderbilt’s advantage and they took it to them early. Tennessee came back later in the half behind the electric play of guard Chris Lofton, who finished the game with 25, closing the lead to 31-28 at the half. They couldn’t ride that momentum in the second half however with Vanderbilt increasing their lead to 8, 64-56, with 5:36 remaining. Shane Foster continued to carry his team through Tennessee’s mini runs throughout the second half, by making big basket after big basket to lead his team to victory. Tennessee scared Vanderbilt in the end after Vandy guard Keegan Bell missed both free throws with two seconds left to give the Volunteers a chance to tie, but Ramar Smith missed a desperation heave at the buzzer to send Vanderbilt home happy. The Commodores improve to 24-4 on the season while Tennessee drops to 25-3 with the loss.